Personal computers and the Internet greatly enhanced communications and access to information from around the world. Typically, visual information is displayed upon a monitor screen and data can be added or manipulated via keystrokes upon an associated keyboard. Feedback is provided visually to the user by the monitor screen. Blind users cannot utilize the information appearing upon the monitor screen while visually impaired users may experience difficulty doing so. Accordingly, screen readers have been developed to assist blind and visually impaired users when they use a personal computer.
One such screen reader is JAWS® for Windows. When installed upon a personal computer, JAWS® provides access to the operating system, software applications and the Internet. JAWS® includes a speech synthesizer that cooperates with the sound card in the personal computer to read aloud information appearing upon the computer monitor screen or that is derived through communicating directly with the application or operating system. Thus, JAWS® provides access to a wide variety of information, education and job related applications. Additionally, JAWS® includes an interface that can provide output to refreshable Braille displays.